This application relates to methods and apparatus for providing a graphical representation of a music library.
Effectively organizing a music library not only allows a user to get a sense of music contained in the library, but also helps them select and play the music. However, the popularity of digital audio encoding together with music distribution channels through the Internet have allowed users to collect hundreds or even thousands of media items. This change in scale of accessible music from the traditional album to thousands of songs makes choosing what music to listen to at a particular moment a challenge.
Digital media players, such as iTunes 10 of FIG. 1 introduced by Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, Calif., USA, allow users to play and organize digital music and video files using textual lists. Each item of the list may be categorized by track title 12, track length 14, artist 16, album 18, year released 20, genre 22, and composer 24. Track lists can be ordered alphanumerically by categories such as title 12, artist 16, album 18, or genre 22 for example. Search bar 26 may be used to perform a keyword-based search by one or more category, such as artist 16, album 18, or track title 12. Tracks may also be filtered using a genre filter 28, artist filter 30, or album filter 32, or all three filters may be used at the same time. For example, the user can filter all tracks by (1) Jazz using genre filter 28, (2) Billie Holiday using artist filter 30, and (3) Lady in Satin using album filter 32. Results from the filters are displayed in a results window 34 and may be ordered alphanumerically by one or more category, such as artist 16, album 18, or track title 12.
Playlists are also known to help organize and manage music libraries. A playlist is a subset of a library that defines an ordered sequence of media items to be played and are usually created by adding media items to the playlist one-by-one. A smart playlist follows a set of logical filtering criteria, such as all jazz from 1970 that were played in the last six months. Playlists may be generated in iTunes 10 using two different methods: (1) adding media items manually in a one-by-one manner; and (2) defining filtering criteria, such as artist 16, album 18, or track title 12, to create smart playlist 36. The smart playlist may automatically update when new media items are added to the library.
Playlists are also known to be automatically generable. PATS: Realization and User Evaluation of an Automatic Playlist Generator of Pauws et. al. refers to a Personalized Automatic Track Selection (PATS) that creates a playlist using a dynamic clustering method. Songs are grouped based on a similarity measure that selectively weighs categorization values of songs, such as track title, year released, album, style, tempo, instruments used, place of recording, record company, or rhythmic foundation. The similarity measure is selective in the sense that one categorization value may be more important than another. When the user selects a song, the cluster in which the song is contained is presented as a playlist. An inductive learning algorithm is used to eliminate tracks from future playlists based upon user input.
In addition, analyzing media items based on signal processing techniques are known to allow the user to organize and visualize a music library. However, these methods analyze each media item using signal processing techniques without requiring categorization based on genre, artist, and year.
Furthermore, visualizing search results is known to help users browse for digitized music. Variations2: Toward Visual Interfaces for Digital Music Libraries of Notess et. al. refers to visualizing music bibliographic data to assist music students and faculty members browse and search for digitized music. By way of example, a student may search for works by creator and instrumentation used. The results of the search are displayed with a grid-based visualization that uses icon shape to represent media type, such as audio, score, or video, color to represent the performer, and position within the grid to indicate both work genre (x-axis) and composer/work (y-axis). Hovering over an object gives details on the performer, for example.
However, each one of these references suffers from one or more of the following disadvantages: (1) the user does not have an overall feel for how many media items are in the music library; (2) the user cannot intuitively see what portion of the library represents a rock genre versus an easy listening genre, for example; (3) the user cannot easily see desired attributes about each media item in relation to the library as a whole, such as which media items they listen to most often; (4) the user cannot easily visualize, manage, or organize playlists; and (5) the user cannot easily rediscover media items in their music library or know which portion of their music library needs expansion.
The present inventors have recognized a need for improved apparatus and methods for providing a graphical representation of a music library.